Sneak Peek Review- “Hesher”

Movie Review by Matthew Schuchman- Two and a Half out of Five ‘Staches.

When someone close to you passes away, you need something or someone to help you through those times. The character of Hesher in the film of the same name is basically the living manifestation of the healing power of heavy metal. What starts off as a fairly funny twist on a”fairy godmother” tale, falls apart as the serious nature of “Hesher” takes over.

Based on the poster and title, you might think that “Hesher” is about the crazy and destructive character played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But the film is really the story of T.J., a young boy who is trying to deal with the loss of his mother. He lives with his father who can hardly move from the couch in his depressed state and his caring grandmother, who no one pays attention to. When one morning T.J. accidentally alerts a security guard to Hesher’s squatting spot on a construction site, Hesher takes it upon himself to invade the boys home and move in, stirring things up for the unhinged family.

From the minute Hesher starts to appear around T.J.’s school to the point he first enters the family’s home, I was enjoying myself. He pops up outside the window of T.J.’s class throwing pebbles at the young boy and sniffs permanent markers. When T.J. gets home he turns around at one point to find Hesher standing right next to him. After each one word answer Hesher delivers to T.J.’s questions, a quick heavy metal riff accompanies. It was actually the perfect set up for a good SNL skit, except it really only works in short bursts. But soon those cute and funny instances disappear never to come up again.

While the movie still tries to play things lightly at times, it is telling a story. While unorthodox in his teachings, Hesher is trying to teach young T.J. a lesson, to help him stand up for himself and break out of this shell. The main issue I have with Hesher’s methods is that the only things T.J. is encouraged to do are illegal; mainly arson. It may open the child up more, but it is all unhealthy in every way. Every situation that Hesher and T.J. find themselves in just pushes me as a viewer farther away from any sympathetic feelings. The fresh take on a stale story is welcome, but makes it hard to cheer for the protagonist.

As I mentioned, “Hesher” is the story of T.J., but it is obviously Joesph Gordon-Levitt’s film; and he excels here. As much as the story may have pushed me from enjoying the movie more, Gordon-Levitt certainly is a joy to watch. To his credit as well, the film is not just him purely acting out and going over the top, he has his moments of subtle change that the character hides, but the actor shows you.The rest of the cast pulls their weight, but they unfortunately were all dealt very one dimensional cliched characters to play. Rainn Wilson drags himself around in a depressed state keeping borders between himself and everyone else and Natalie Portman is the shy and frail checkout clerk that T.J. has a crush on; nothing that new. However, buying a ticket to “Hesher” is worth the money to see Piper Laurie take a bong hit.

“Hesher” the film oddly enough mirrors Hesher the character. Those both meant well, but don’t really know the right way to go about it.